The European Union pressed Ukraine authorities yesterday (18 January) to overcome political feuding and implement promised reforms as it looks to shore up the country’s democratic and economic credentials.

Having so far failed to end the Russian-backed war in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv’s western supporters are now seeking to shift the focus onto modernisation, concerned that the West’s huge political investment in Ukraine could go to waste.

“We understand the pressures the Ukrainian government is under internally,” said Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond at a meeting of EU foreign ministers. “But we continually remind them of their obligations under Minsk,” Hammond told reporters, referring to the peace deal signed in February last year in the Belarusian capital.

Reforms tied to the Minsk accord, which was extended beyond its end-2015 deadline, would give Kyiv more credibility, Hammond said (see background).

That included changing Ukraine’s constitution to grant special status to the Donbass industrial regions of eastern Ukraine now under rebel control.

Russia denies it has provided weapons to the rebels or that it has troops engaged in the conflict that has killed more than 8,000 people since it broke out April 2014, following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

Rebels and the Ukrainians complain of violations of the ceasefire negotiated as part of the Minsk deal. Both say heavy artillery, meant to have been withdrawn, is still being used.

Seeking to cement Ukraine’s historic shift away from Russia, senior US and EU officials are trying to help Ukraine’s leadership modernise the former Soviet state, where the shadow economy accounts more than half of output by some estimates.

In a note seen by Reuters on Monday, nine EU countries including Germany and Britain said Europe needed to show even more support for Ukraine, as well as calling for reforms.

While political rifts and the danger of the ruling Ukrainian coalition breaking up is less of an imminent threat since the government passed a 2016 draft budget in late December, other difficult reforms outside of the Minsk accord, ranging from the tax code to the judiciary, are pending.

“There are deficits in the justice system, especially in the fight against corruption,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told a news conference. “That has to be corrected as soon as possible … Ukraine has to become more attractive for foreign investors.”

Ukraine has already received almost $10 billion in 2015 from the International Monetary Fund and other international lenders to shore up its finances, crippled by the conflict and years of mismanagement and corruption.

Background

The leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine (the so-called Normandy format) gave their support to a deal to end fighting in eastern Ukraine, following 17-hour long negotiations in the Belarussian capital Minsk on 12 February.

The four leaders committed to respecting Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to a joint declaration.

Western leaders are closely observing the implementation of the Minsk agreement.

On 2 March 2015, European leaders said that they agreed that the OSCE needed a broader role as observers of the ceasefire, and weapons removal.

On 2 October 2015, the leaders of the Normandy format admitted that it would take time to organise elections in Ukraine that respect international standards and as a result, the so-called Minsk peace process would run into next year.

Comments

Leave a Reply

The years of corruption and mismanagement are set to continue for a long time while we keep on bottle feeding the existing regime. The support for Ukraine is based on hostility towards Russia and the country’s ruling elite is not capable of meaningful change. As long as they are not able to let go of Donbass the crisis will continue to deepen. Europe should not seek a deeper association with this lot until their struggles with Russia have been settled and are well and truely over.